My Career Shadowing Experience

On Monday, June 30th, 2008, I went to the Career Shadowing at Felsburg Holt & Ullevig. It was about engineering. Alison Sambol was an Environmental Scientist and Matt was a Civil Engineer. Alison and Matt sat down and talk to me and Tai Hoang. They were explaining about becoming an engineer. The basics thing about becoming an engineer is that if you are good in Math, Physics and Chemistry. If you are, then you could see yourself becoming an engineer. The first two years of engineering in college, everybody take same basic engineering classes, so that it would give you some ideas of what kind of engineer you want to be, then on the third and fourth year, you will take different classes depending on what you are interesting on other kinds of engineering. Then Allison introduced us to a guy that dealing with designing roads. He told us that there are always some new projects to do after you finish the last project. He was so busy!!!
Then we met Jeff and Gareth. Jeff graduated from college last year and Gareth is still in college, finishing his senior year. Jeff’s job was about bridges and Gareth’s was about controlling the traffics. Alison told us that all of the different engineers can work together in one project. No matter if you are an environment engineer, computer engineer or a construction engineer, they all can work together. The company would have to ask the government and the public first before they work on the project. They have to have proves for building things, so the project would be accepted. At the end we got a pen and a graph not book. This experience was worth it, because I had learned a lot about engineering and got a free pen (it’s a very good pen too).

My Achievement

My mom and my dad influence me. They are very important to my life, because they both work very hard to make our life happy. Especially my dad, he always works, even though he does not have to work. Sometimes I just want to pay back some of the things that my parents had helped and gave me something that was very important to me, life. The only thing that they really want from me is for me to follow my dreams to become a successful person and happy. My dreams are, to get good grades, finish high school, go to college, get a good job, and might or might not marry, but the most important thing is going to college.
My ability to stay focus on something that I want to accomplish. For example: My grades at school and learning. I came from Thailand to the USA and went straight into High School. I did not get discouraged and I kept focus on what I want to do and that was to get good grades in school. I did not let things interfere in, I achieving my goals.
The issue that matter to me the most was back when I was in seventh grade. I was still going to school there. I felt like I was failing and giving up on my life. I stressed out, because of the finals at school and my dad’s job. In my mind, I knew that I would pass all of the classes, because I always did. But I was so depress and nervous, and that made me lost my confidence in myself. When I depressed, I drank about four bottles of pop everyday. One day, I passed out in band, while everybody was marching. When I opened my eyes, I was in the nurse’s office, lying on the bed. The nurse told me that I was very sick, because I drank too much pop and stress, and with my hyperness, the pop actually made me tired and crashed. She told me that if I continue drinking more pop, I would have a hold in my stomach, and it would cause more problems. I was frightening with all of the pop thing and the final thing.
When I went home, I told my mom that I’m giving up with my life. I told her that I wanted to drop out of school. Because school in Thailand, you have to pay a huge amount of money and especially my school, it was a catholic school. My dad worked on Mondays to Fridays, but sometimes Saturday. He left at six in the morning for work and came back at eleven at night. Sometimes I did not see him for weeks, but I understand that he had been busy lately. My mom was very good of talking with people when they are giving up and depress. She gave me some of advises that would help me get through the stress. She bought mea stress relieve, it was a very soft ball that when you are stress out, you could squeeze it, and it did help me.
Then I realized that there were so many solutions to get out of the depressed situation, because my family was there for me.
I want to attend to University of California San Diego, because I want to be a Marine Biologist. The University is very close to the ocean, which it would be the best place to study marine’s life. The weather is the other thing that I like about it, because you don’t have to worry about snow or cold, California is perfect for me. It’s very close to my brother’s house and I could visit and hang out with him any time I want. It’s a big school but it has a lot of majors and the study environment is perfect.

Week at the Scott Resident Hall

It was fun. I had learned many things. I really enjoyed all of the activities. I met new friends from different school. We get along pretty good. It was a good experience to stay at the Scott Resident Hall for a week. The taking a college course, English, it is hard but it is fun. I really like the teacher, Mrs. Rocha. She is really nice and outgoing. The class is very interesting. I had learned a lot about American Indians’ life.